‘Misty Green’ at TIFF: Rosalind Eleazar’s Best Actress Oscars Launch

Roughly two-thirds through “Misty Green,” Rosalind Eleazar takes a breath and lets a rendition of “One Night Only,” from the musical “Dreamgirls,” rip. The characters around her go quiet, and the crowd at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Chris Rock‘s film made its world premiere, were enraptured. But when Rock and his cast took the stage for a post-screening Q&A, the crowd made their appreciation for her work known with cheers and applause.

Onstage, Eleazar explained why she fell in love with Misty and was “really desperate” to play the part.

“It was such a raw and honest take on the darker side of our industry,” Eleazar said about reading the script for the first time (and charming the crowd with her British accent). “She’s such a complex and such a contradictory and flawed character, and I’m sort of drawn to characters that are difficult to love, and the way that Chris wrote the individual relationships with such precision and nuance.”

“The moment I read the script in London, I was desperate to do this part. So I did whatever I could,” Eleazar said, before realizing what she’d accidentally insinuated, since Misty Green will indeed do anything for a role. Rock and the crowd chuckled as she hastily recovered: “Normal things! Just like Zooms and stuff.”

Eleazar — recently named one of Variety’s 10 Actors to Watch for 2026 — is a best actress contender that dares anyone in the room to argue otherwise. Each scene feels fit for her Oscar clip package, much Cate Blanchett delivered in each beat of “Blue Jasmine.” Misty is a fading, award-winning actress clawing back her career, but self-sabotaging along the way. Eleazar plays her with the danger of Pam Grier and the polish of Tracee Ellis Ross.

”I love a messy woman,” Rock said, explaining why he crafted the complex character in the first place. “I like to make things I haven’t seen: I haven’t seen it with a woman, I haven’t seen it with a Black woman.”

As Rock explained in his Variety cover story, the role was a tricky one to cast because of its risqué nature, but Eleazar was game as could be.

“I know she’s a lovely lady and demure tonight, but you have these meetings, and you have to think to yourself: ‘OK, is she gonna smoke the cigarette in her underwear on the balcony? Is she gonna get on the floor and fight for the money? Like on the day you can just say you’re not doing it, and what the fuck am I gonna do?”

With “Misty Green,” Rock, who wrote and directed the film, crafted a dramatic satire that cuts to the bone. The film functions as a tour of Los Angeles’ most potable artistic hot spots, but doubles as an autopsy of the business, especially for artists of color. He skewers “Hollywood” without ever quite naming names. “Call Kevin,” one actor barks. “Is it Hart?” The film keeps daring you to fill in the blanks.

Most importantly, Rock hands Eleazar showcase after showcase, and she cashes in on every opportunity. A sequence built around a screen test for “The Devil Wears Prada” is the funniest, sharpest stretch of acting in the film — until the next one that follows it. When Misty sings a version of Radiohead’s “Creep” in the lounge at the Hollywood Roosevelt, the ache lands similarly to Carey Mulligan’s “New York, New York” solo in “Shame.” By the time Eleazar reaches “One Night Only,” it’s her “La La Land” audition moment.

Now, for the Oscar-shaped elephant in the room. Only one Black woman has won the lead actress Oscar: Halle Berry, for “Monster’s Ball,” in 2002. Now, 24 ceremonies later, could Eleazar be the most credible candidate to become the second? She’s more than worthy.

And then there’s Daniel Kaluuya. The “Judas and the Black Messiah” Oscar winner has been away from screens for too long, and “Misty Green” is the argument for why the business can’t afford to keep letting that happen. He plays Misty’s brother, who grapples with his mental health. A single scene near the finale is enough to shatter your heart.

Adam Driver turns up for a stretch that is, improbably, the best thing he does all year — better even than his work in “Paper Tiger” — as a Hollywood type that walks the fine line between pimp and producer. One scene, which finds him snorting a line off Misty’s thigh, is pure, gleeful provocation.

Rock’s entire ensemble is superb. Anna Kendrick gives her sharpest turn since “Up in the Air” as Misty’s best friend, a fellow actress drawn to Black men even as she dates the family-approved white ones. Topher Grace plays Misty’s talent agent, forced to deliver the hard truths about her erratic behavior. Rock casts himself as Jordan Green, a Hollywood director who knew Misty at her peak. Colleen Camp has a small, sly role, her second A24 film this year after “Club Kid.” Anthony Anderson plays a police officer, whose deadened delivery drives the film toward some of its most uncomfortable scenes.

“Misty Green” has plenty of laughs, but it curdles by the end — à la “Requiem for a Dream” — with scenes that drag Misty into the darkest depths of the business.

Nonetheless, Rock is building toward something less comfortable than a takedown of Hollywood vanity. The film is ultimately about is redemption and an examination of mental illness — and how thoroughly the country has failed to fund it, understand it or train anyone, its police most of all, to meet it. Anderson’s cop and Kaluuya’s brother are two ends of the same failure, and the movie sits in the space between them.

For the upcoming Oscar race, Eleazar is a top-tier best actress contender in waiting. Kaluuya belongs in the supporting conversation on the strength of a single scene. And Rock, long underrated behind the camera since “Top Five,” has finally made the movie that earns his name a place in the screenplay and directing chatter.

“Misty Green” opens in U.S. theaters on Oct. 9.